Words matter. These are the best Jean Paul Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.
Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.
The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.
Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.
As winter strips the leaves from around us, so that we may see the distant regions they formerly concealed, so old age takes away our enjoyments only to enlarge the prospect of the coming eternity.
A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.
The darkness of death is like the evening twilight; it makes all objects appear more lovely to the dying.
Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account?
There is a joy in sorrow which none but a mourner can know.
I have made as much out of myself as could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more.
A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes anothers.
Sorrows are like thunderclouds, in the distance they look black, over our heads scarcely gray.
Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.
Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.
Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept – and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.
Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.
Good actions ennoble us, we are the sons of our own deeds.
Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest.
What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease.
Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.
There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.
Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.
Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time.
Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.
Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
Only actions give life strength; only moderation gives it charm.
Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.
Live your life and forget your age.
You prove your worth with your actions, not with your mouth.
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.
The miracle on earth are the laws of heaven.
Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.
Every friend is to the other a sun, and a sunflower also. He attracts and follows.
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations.
Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it.
It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them.
The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe.
Gray hairs seem to my fancy like the soft light of the moon, silvering over the evening of life.
Age does not matter if the matter does not age.
There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.
Woman and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but the first to rescue when others are in danger.
Be great in act, as you have been in thought.
God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul.
